This
page is brought to you as a service of Hyde
Park-Kenwood Community Conference neighborhood association and its website
http://www.hydepark.org. We monitor and comment upon government, its servants,
and services and the electoral process and stand for good government and practices
but as a 501c3 do not endorse candidates or lobby. Reach us at hpkcc@aol.com
or 773 288-8343.

HPKCC
hopes this page will help you to make your voice heard in local government
and to more easily access resources. (Services take up the most of
the table below). We encourage you to copy us at hpkcc@aol.com
when you want to draw more attention to any issues and concerns you raise
with our political leaders. Part of HPKCC's mission is to serve as a forum
for policies that affect us, to assess consensus among residents, and ultimately
to advocate for what the community believes is in its best interest.To Calendars
and Directories

READ FACTS ABOUT REGISTERING
AND VOTING in the next election: VISIT VOTING
PAGE FOR FULL ELECTIONS INFORMATION. To
follow what's going on politically and with the city see Campaign
Front page. (Current: ward mapping, participatory budgeting.)Find out about your governments and what they provide in Government
Services. A new one-stop by city-county-state is OPEN
DATA: http://www.MetroChicagoData.org.
Find Chicago, Cook, and Illinois services/facilities/agencies, offices/info
sites of officials, approved homecare providers, check register, mapof restaurants
and inspections, public health data, crimes, gov't officials/workers salaries,
vendors and contracts. According to The Daily Whale, the site organizes data
sets into categories consisting of: housing and property; economic development;
education; environment; government administration; ethics; health and human
services; public safety; tax and revenue; and transportation. Also included
on the website are newly created data sets. These features include: an interactive
map of the area's hospitals, clinics and other healthcare facilities that
are operated by the city, county or state; a directory of government buildings
and facilities in metro Chicago; and tax, permits, investment incentives and
regulation data for businesses.

The
State Board of Elections online registration tool is functional and may be
used to register voters. https://ova.elections.il.gov
For Chicago your one-stop is chicagoelections.org.
EARLY VOTING has started Mon-Saturdayt 9-5 through Feb. 21 plus Sunday the
15th 9-3 at any of the one of the 51 places, one per ward plus downtown. You
must bring an identifible ID-- 2 (1 with photo) if you are changing address
or name or voting for the first time in Chicago.
The location in the 4th Ward is the King Center, 3858 S. Cottage Grove. That
for the 5th Ward is Jackson Park Fieldhouse, 6401 S. Stony Island.
Absentee voting can be applied for or and returned through Feb. 19 online
or in person,

Civics 101-Part
II- to follow a bill through state assembly do the following:

1. go
to www.ilga.gov and on
home page
on left in search box type in s.b. or h.b. with number
and press go then you shall come to
3. stated bill go down page to see what actions are taken
for the stated bill like which committees they are in,
then see if any part of proceedures knocks out any of
original bill (read only parts which apply)
4. go to full text and read same
(If you don't know the bill number, below the box for the number there is
a box in which you can search by keyword.)

Ward
Phone: 773-536-8103
Fax 773 536-7296
City Hall Office: 121 N. LaSalle St.
Room 300, Office 10
Chicago, IL 60602
City Hall Phone: 312-744-2690
312-744-2691
If you know someone that wants to be added to the ward newsletter e-blast
please contact Prentice Butler at prentice.butler@cityofchicago.org
or call him. You can also follow me on twitter at ald4_Willburns, Google
+and I have a presence on Facebook at Alderman William "Will"
Burns. I also have a website at www.aldwillburns.com.

City
Information and Complaints
Telephone (312) 744-5000 or 311City of Chicago /(Office of
the) Mayor (The Mayor cannot be directly sent e-mail) (Complaints may
be better fielded by your alderman's office.)

Follow in
the website top left column any bill introduced in the current session
through the legisature and find out its contents and status. (Note, many
bills start as boilerplate filler-
shells, they are called- especially a duplicate of one in the other chamber,
until it's actually
heard, composed and negotiated.)

Training requests must
be submitted, in writing, on an organization's letterhead, by the organization
coordinator, with phone number. The Community Services Division of the Board
must receive these requests by the indicated deadline. Send to attn. of Kelly
Bateman, Director, Community Services Division. The request must include name
and address of each volunteer and indicate the class date and time requested.
Attendees must reside in Chicago. Sessions may be cancelled. Training is at
33 N. LaSalle 2nd floor.

County
Clerk Orr: need felt for election judges

If we can put a man on
the moon, why can't we get elections right?

As Cook County's chief
election authority, I hear that a lot. In reality, neither rocket scientists
nor my staff runs the show on Election day. The most powerful people on Election
Day are the election judges--your neighbors who wake up ast 4 a.m. and spend
a 14-hour day inside a school gymnasium to ensure that your polling place
runs smoothly.

In helping to guarantee
democracy, polling place workers shouldn't have to take a vacation day or
worry about jeopardizing their jobs. Instead, businesses should allow employees
to take the day off to serve as election judges--just as they do for employees
who sit on juries.

Since the 2000 presidential
election, most of the debate surrounding election reform has focused on voting
equipment, while the human component of improving elections has largely been
ignored. Sure, machnes count votes and transmit results, but election judges
must set up the equipment correctly, show voters how the machines work and
know what to do if they malfunction.

Unfortunately, election
authorities nationwide face shortages of eletion judges at a time when we
need them most. The introduction of new federal voting procedures coupled
with an expected heavy voter turnout makes it essential that every precinct
have a full complement of five election judges for the November 2 election.
That's more than 25,000 election judges in Cook County alone.

Last spring, my office
drafted a bill that would have required businesses to give time off to employes
who work as election judges. It ultimately died after winning approval in
the Illinois House. But civic-minded companies in Ilinois can still support
the spirit of the law on their own.

Deforest B. Soaries,
Jr., chairman of the federal Election Assistance Commission, has called the
decrease in polling place workers "an emerging crisis" that eclipses
any technical issues. The commission is now urging corporate leaders nationwide
to recruit more election judges by awarding employees the day off to work
ath e polls.

Granted, working as an
election judge is hardly glamourous stuff. You work long hours and don't get
rich doing it. But election judges play a critical role by serving on the
front lines and makeing sure elections are conducted fairly, honestly and
accurately.

The more knowledgeable,
well-trained judges we have on hand, the better. Granting them time off to
protect voter rights, reduce polling place confusion and minimize ballot errors
only makes sense.

Election judge
vacancies a familiar problem. by Theresa M. Petrone, Bd of El. Commrs. [Note,
a firm rebuttal by a retired teacher to the part about using teachers appeared
in the September 29 Hyde Park Herald.]

Hyde Park Herald,
September 15, 2004

The current system of
recruiting and assigning judges is no longer effective and needs to be replaced
with a procedure that will ensure all voters are served by trained and reliable
poll workers.

Judges of election are
currently appointed by the two major political parties. In the City of Chicago,
approximately 14,000 judges, evenly divided betweeen Democrat an Republican,
are needed to staff the city's 2,709 polling places.

Unfortunately, in recent
years, this task has become more difficult, leaving the Chicago Board of Election
Commissioners scrambling to fill thousands of vacancies during the 45-day
period prior to the election when the Board can make direct appointments in
precincts where the political parties made no assignments.

With only a few months
until the Nov. 2 Presidential Election, the Board finds itself with more than
10,000 judges of election vacancies. A crisis? Yes, but one tha the Board
faces every two years when the term of all judges of election expires.

Past experience has demonstrated
that the key to a well-run election is to hae trained and conscientious judges
of election assigned to all precincts. Although there are hundreds of dedicated
judges of election who serve every election, some for decades, there are many
precincts where it is difficult to recruit anyone to serve. This problem is
compounded by the large number of judges of election who fail to show up election
morning, leaving some precincts with one or two judges, or even none!

Serving as a judge of
election requires training. Judges must know ho to set up the polling place
in the morning; process and assist voters during the polling hours; be able
to close the polls and tally the vote; and be knowledgeable of a complex State
Election code and federal reauirements. The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners
does its pasrt in providing a professional school of instruction, a comprehensive
judge of election manual, and unlimited backup services through Election central.
Yet, even with all of this assistance, serving as a judge can be a challenging
and intimidating task. In precincts with untrined judges of election, mistakes
are easy to make, sometimes disenfranchising voters.

What is the solution
to the judge of election vacancy crisis? Her is a suggestion that would solve
the judge of election dilemma and provide voters with the best possible electoral
system:

A professional cadre
of Chicago school teaachers who would staff the city's polling places every
election....